The Doctrine, Part One
April 19, 2002
By S.A. Lowery aka Khephra

"Enough Is Enough." — George W. Bush, April 4, 2002

For possibly the first time in his life, George W. Bush spoke honestly to the American public instead of spinning or sloganeering, when he uttered the words, "Enough is enough!" Although he was speaking out on the crisis in the Middle East, those words rang true because those words also lend themselves to another matter at hand on the minds of many people across the globe - the Bush Doctrine.

The Bush Doctrine is a hypocritical, childish game of cowboys and Indians disguised as foreign policy. With each passing day, it is becoming plain to see -- to even the most casual observer of Bush's words and deeds -- just how much of a threat the Bush Doctrine is to the stability of the world.

Yes, Mr. Bush, we have had enough -- enough of both you and of your Doctrine of Domination.

The Bush Doctrine Abroad

"If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier...just as long as I'm the dictator..." — George W. Bush Dec 18, 2000

What is the Bush Doctrine? Simply stated, it is a policy of division, of segregation, and of opposition. It is "Us versus Them" politics; with "Them" being whatever country Bush has cast in the guise of would-be villain that week, preferably a country filled with Arabs and oil. Ever since the Cold War ended, the Republican Party has been casting about for a new enemy to replace their old stand-by, the U.S.S.R., so they can justify their bloated military budgets and religious devotion to Star Wars technology. And now it looks like Bush has found one - everybody but us. Or perhaps I should say, everyone but the U.S.?

Congress originally gave Bush their backing to use force in this War on Terror because his stated goal was to track down and bring to justice the plotters behind the attacks on 9/11. He was not given a free rein to send our men and women into whatever country he so chooses, simply because he says it is an evil nation. There needs to be evidence of their complicity beyond Bush's accusatory rhetoric. Or have we abandoned the idea that we are a nation of laws, simply because the Republicans are repeating over and over that "everything has changed," and "we are at war"?

We were told we would be given proof of Osama bin Laden's involvement in the tragedy of 9/11, but the American public is still waiting. Not all of us have forgotten the Bush Administration's promise on this issue. Now we are being told of possible connections linking Saddam Hussein to 9/11, as well. Based upon past Bush Administration actions, it is almost a certainty Bush will send our troops into Iraq, regardless of whether or not there is an actual case against Saddam.

Do Bush's accusations of guilt merit the risk of all-out war in the Middle East, when we have friendly diplomatic relations with many other similar dictators? Before our country throws our support behind a potentially disastrous move, such as attacking Iraq -- right at a time when anti-American feelings have never been stronger in the Arab world -- some of us would still like to see the initial evidence connecting Osama bin Laden to 9/11 that we were promised. If he was actually involved, it should not be too hard to produce. Edited, mistranslated videos that would not even be admitted as evidence in a court of law are simply not enough from this Administration anymore. Understand this point, and you will understand why the Bush Administration is trying to create an unconstitutional tribunal system just to try "some" accused terrorists.

Why is Bush going after Saddam when the war in Afghanistan is unfinished and Osama bin Laden is supposedly still on the run? It would stand to reason that bin Laden is still a threat, but Bush has said in the past that he does not think about Osama bin Laden that much anymore, and it has also been droned into us that the war was bigger than just one man. That may be so, but if it is, then it is also bigger than Bush and his self-centered goal of completing his father's work.

Another issue that is bigger than Bush is our country's relationship with Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has also been criticized for being involved in many of the same actions we accuse Saddam Hussein of committing. If we are going to back an attack on Iraq as a country, then we, as a people, need to be given an explanation from the Bush Administration as to why we are not waging war with Saudi Arabia as well.

The Bush Administration has been trying to convince the world that the U.S. must deal with Iraq, because Saddam's support of terrorism is a threat to us all. That may be so, and in fact is very likely. However, if these are the reasons behind Bush's desire to depose Saddam, and not just petty revenge, then why did Bush invite Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah back to the Bush Ranch? Even though the Prince has now cancelled, uncancelled, and recancelled the meeting, we will have to assume that Bush would have still met with the Prince, since the Administration has not said otherwise.

The stated purpose was Mideast peace, which would be a refreshing change from Mideast war, and on that topic I have no criticism. However, by attempting to meet with Abdullah, Bush has further undermined his own case for enacting the Bush Doctrine as official U.S. foreign policy.

By the Bush Doctrine's convoluted logic, those that support terrorists, in any way, directly or indirectly, are just as "evil" as the terrorists themselves. In fact, they have been judged as being terrorists as well. Remember, you are either with him or against him in Bush's worldview. There was supposed to be no hedging on this issue. Too bad for Mr. Bush that the Bush Doctrine is totally unworkable in the real world in which the rest of us are forced to live.

The Bush Administration has repeatedly lectured us that there would be no negotiations with terrorist in the "morally clear" world of the Bush Doctrine. However, as stated before, the Saudi Arabian Government has clearly supported terrorism in the past. So would that not also make Crown Prince Abdullah a terrorist supporter and his government a state that sponsors terrorism? So I ask you, why is Bush inviting a known terrorist supporter to his home instead of "rooting him out"? And if he is willing to speak with Abdullah about peace, why not attempt to speak to Saddam as well? Or is that too radical of an idea? There is no clear answer to these questions, it is simply more hypocrisy from a hypocritical administration.

In fact, the majority of the terrorist hijackers of 9/11 were not from Afghanistan or Iraq, instead they were citizens of Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has set up a fund to issue payouts to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers, just like Iraq. Saudi Arabia has a government that oppresses its own people, just like Iraq. So why is Bush beating the drums against Iraq and not beating them against Saudi Arabia? That question is easy to answer -- oil. When it comes to oil, the Bush Administration has no moral qualms about dealing with states that support terrorism. Unless it is Saddam Hussein, of course - then it is personal. Saudi Arabia is only "business" as usual.

Bush does not like to be pestered by such a bothersome issue as finding the man he directly blamed for 9/11 anymore. That is, unless Bush's poll numbers are slipping, and then Osama bin Laden will suddenly become a hot topic again, and Bush's failures will be pushed from the news. Osama bin Laden is "spotted" or a "new" tape is "found". Excuse me for sounding conspiracy minded, but it is hard to know what is real and what is make-believe when the enemy that you fight has been trained by our own CIA.

However, should a reporter dare to inquire about the hunt for Osama bin Laden at any other time than when he is in the news, the Bush Administration will deflect each question with platitudes and spin. This is an outrageous insult to the families of the victims of 9/11 who watch in silence, waiting for word on Osama bin Laden's fate.

Let me put this into an analogy that everyone can understand. Maybe then, even the Republican hawks will realize -- when you share this story with them -- just how important it is that we deal with Osama bin Laden. There really is no way this War on Terror can ever be won unless he is brought to justice or killed in combat.

Imagine, if you will, that you come home one night and find a Sheriff's patrol car, with its red and blue lights on, parked right in front of your house. You rush towards your front door, hoping that your family is safe and sound, and that it is just a false alarm. But Sheriff Bush stops you and informs you that a serial killer called the Evil Doer has murdered your family.

Standing in front of the press with a bullhorn, he promises to track down the murdering "guy" who killed your family in cold blood, because he thought they were weak. You ask some questions about your alarm system. Was it working? Did the locks hold? "I will tell you later," Sheriff Bush says with a smirk. You're in too much of a state of shock to think clearly, so you go mourn in solitude for a while, trusting that the man in charge of hunting down your family's killers will bring them to justice.

Months pass, and you still haven't heard any updates on the investigation from Sheriff Bush. However, you have been seeing the Sheriff on TV quite a bit recently, talking about his Manhunt on Murder. Each time the Sheriff speaks before the press, he does not really bother to share any new details about the case. Instead the Sheriff rants on and on about how the Evil Doer is such an evil man and how he must be stopped dead in his tracks. He then goes on to repeat the word "evil" about a thousand times in 10 minutes.

Once again, you decide to put your trust in the Sheriff, so you sit at home and wait in heartbreaking silence. Surely, you think, the Sheriff will keep at his job, even if you aren't watching his press conferences anymore. So you go back to waiting.

As time progresses, you notice a change in the things Sheriff Bush is saying. Instead of talking about hunting down the serial killer who slaughtered your family, he's now talking about some vague idea of hunting down all serial killers and eliminating serial killer murder altogether. One day, Sheriff Bush starts talking about another serial killer called the Boogeyman. As the days turn into weeks, you start to notice that your case starts getting less and less airtime from the Sheriff during his press conferences and public statements. Soon all he is talking about is the Boogeyman and the need to end serial killing once and for all, and then your case is not mentioned again.

The Sheriff also expands his Manhunt on Murder to include all people who have ever committed a murder -- including soldiers -- or anyone who might possibly one day commit a murder. People who rent apartments to "murderers" and shopkeepers who have sold to "murderers" are also put on notice that Sheriff Bush's Manhunt will get them too, if they don't watch out.

Eventually, you start to investigate the murder of your family by hiring a team of lawyers and private dectives, but Sheriff Bush does not like that. And neither does the Sheriff's posse. Instead of helping you find the man responsible for the deaths of your family, Sheriff Bush and his cronies now set out to block all your efforts at finding out the truth. And then your investigators inform you of their dreadful suspicion that the Sheriff might actually be financially connected to the chief suspect in your family's deaths.

You decide to try to call Sheriff Bush once again to find out if there is any new information on your family's case, something that would contradict your investigator's information about the Sheriff, but all you ever get from that point on is a busy signal when you call. You have now reached your breaking point.

Fed up with it all, you sneak into a press conference being held by the Sheriff's spokesman, and you bravely ask, "What about the man responsible for killing my family? When will he be brought to justice? Is Sheriff Bush even interested in my case anymore?" But instead of answering, the spokesman sneers at you and says, "The Manhunt is more important than just one man." He cuts you off when you try to ask a follow-up question, only to answer a question about the Sheriff's desire to take care of the Boogeyman once and for all instead, and they promise to do the job this time, unlike the Sheriff's father, Poppa Sheriff.

Depressed and angry, you flee the press conference and head towards home. Once there, you throw yourself into bed, wishing this nightmare would end. You swear to yourself that tomorrow you will stand up to Sheriff Bush publicly, as you drift off to sleep.

But you never get your chance, because like many criminals, the Evil Doer returns to the scene of his crime. Once again, the Evil Doer disables your alarm with a penknife, and then he sneaks up your stairs, up to your room where you sleep. One moment is all you get. One moment to look up and see the Evil Doer, wearing a Halloween mask of Sheriff Bush's face, as he sticks a knife into your belly.

Now you have an idea of what it feels like for the families of the victims of 9/11, each time Bush publicly dismisses the idea that capturing Osama bin Laden is important to the War on Terror. On this issue, like many others, Bush is wrong. Taking care of Osama bin Laden is more than important; it is the whole reason we became involved in this war in the first place.

Congress gave Bush their support to attack Afghanistan because it was thought he would actually try to track down Osama bin Laden and the other plotters of 9/11. But if dealing with Osama bin Laden, the alleged mastermind behind 9/11, is no longer Bush's primary goal, then why is he being allowed to act like a Junior League General on the world's stage? Osama bin Laden does matter and Bush needs to realize this fact and stop insulting us all.

If we are going to be fighting a War on Terror, then the man who planned the tragedy of 9/11 should be at the top of the list, not the man Bush thinks is financially behind it. A terrorist can do an astonishing amount of damage with limited resources, whereas the financiers of terrorism cannot do anything without terrorists. The Bush Administration should catch the man we suspect is responsible for 9/11 first, and then we can find out more about his funding and Iraq. This should be the order of our priorities.

Instead of concentrating on the original goal, it seems as if each week a new country is added to Bush's list of evil nations. First it was Afghanistan, and now the list is so long I dare you to try naming them all from memory. When that many fronts are being opened, then it is essential a clear exit strategy exists. There is no exit here. There is only chaos.

The Bush Doctrine was supposed to be a statement of moral absolutism: There would be no retreat, no surrender, and no negotiations with terrorists. Instead, we see them reacting to each day's events in a confusion, because the Middle East is too complex for good versus evil diplomacy. Changes are being instituted to the Bush Doctrine on an almost daily basis, as the situation in the Middle East becomes more entangled and complex. The Bush Doctrine, once praised for its moral simplicity, has become the laughing stock of the world community because of its brazen hypocrisy.

One week it is Syria and Iran that gets Bush's special attention, but next week it just might be France. Seriously ask yourselves if you would put it past Bush at this point to use our military against the European Union, if he thought he could get away with it, and he believed it would further his political agenda? France is in more danger than you might think, due to their government's refusal to assist in the investigation of Zacarias Moussaoui, because of Ashcroft's oxymoronic goal of deterring suicidal terrorists by threatening them with the death penalty.

Or maybe next week, it will be the whole of the European Union instead of just France? It really would not be too much of a surprise, because, as we all plainly know, speaking out against the Bush Administration supports terrorism, and if you support terrorism, then you are as bad as the terrorists.

Is it impossible to think that Bush could ever add a friendly country to his nations of terror, just because they might disagree with him? Is that not the basis of the Bush Doctrine? You are either with us or against us, he said, so just wait for the day he gets serious about those nagging Europeans who have dared to question his actions, unlike our silent politicians at home.

Or maybe Bush will be insane enough to add Israel to his list of evil nations, because Sharon is not doing what Bush wants him to do, when he wants him to do it? Of course, Bush would never be that insane to actually do something as stupid as that, now would he?

If a country is not an enemy of the U.S. right now, and Bush wants to wage war on them, well "make no mistake about it," he will either add them to his Axis of Evil or he will say something so diplomatically naive it will push the other side into being antagonistic towards us, just like he has been doing with North Korea.

Wrapped in a flag of sunshine patriotism, the drums of war are being pounded by Republican chickenhawks. What is a chickenhawk? A "chickenhawk" is a Republican who has had the nerve to criticize democrats, usually Clinton, on their patriotism during wartime. These chickenhawks find no hypocrisy in the idea of criticizing a man for standing up for his beliefs, while at the same time avoiding service themselves, often due to questionable deferments and family connections. They call upon others to die in their wars, yet when it was time for them to serve they simply called up daddy.

Currently we have sitting in the White House a man who was released from the National Guard to help run a Republican political campaign, while the children of people not so well connected were dying, and not a single Democrat has brought this issue up since the War on Terror started. That is not even to mention the fact that no one knows where Bush was for over a year of his service time.

Normally, I would never care about a politician's military record. However, with Bush's eagerness to wage war in any country he chooses, and the chickenhawk's unjust attacks upon Clinton's interest in brokering a peace agreement in the Middle East, I feel it is a proper issue to address. Being AWOL because you have family connections is a little bit different than speaking out against a war that you feel is wrong. One is an issue of free speech, the other is one of family connections.

Ever since the Democratic Party was formed, Democrats have fought bravely in our nation's many military actions and wars. A few of the Democratic members of Congress are even heroes with Purple Hearts and other honors. It is time you put your political life on the line and speak out against the insanity that is doubling for a just cause. How can you stomach the hypocrisy of this man as he speaks of sending our youth into country after country?

What would the Republican's response be if a Democratic President with a similar military record as Bush's own background was sitting in the White House today? I can tell you what they would say. The Republican chickenhawks would shout, "I can support the troops without supporting the President."

Eventually, enough fronts will be opened in Bush's War on Terror that our troops will be stretched thin. Soon after, we will hear the Republican chickenhawks in Congress crying out for a draft. And this time, not just your sons will go. They will ask for your daughters too, but we all know their sons and daughters will never have to fight, just like their warmongering fathers. It is a tradition with the Republicans, and we all know Republicans love their traditional family values.

It is time for you to start using that quote as a preface to your statements on the war, instead of saying "I support Bush's War on Terror." It is time for that support to be replaced with opposition or we are looking at World War III -- a war caused by Bush's complete lack of understanding of Middle Eastern history, culture, politics, and religion.

Eye-for-an-eye warfare will not bring security to our country, which anyone watching the current situation in Israel and Palestine understands far too clearly. There are times when military action is appropriate, but we have long passed that point. It is time to stop slouching towards our own personal Bethlehem. It is time we stand upright and proud, once again, and reject the Beast we have become as a country following at Bush's heels. If we do not stand now, then we risk repeating the mistakes being played out in Israel and Palestine as I write this letter, except this time it will be played out on a global scale. In that nightmare scenario, we will be the Israelis, and the rest of the world will be our occupied territories, filled full of potential suicide bombing Palestinians.

Striking out against those you feel have hurt you in fear is understandable, but so is attempting to find ways of coping that does not involve bombing every country Bush says is evil. The goal was simple at first, but now it is vague and undefined. No other word than quagmire fits in a situation like this.

The sooner the Democratic Party stands up to the Bush Doctrine, the better. Our country is quickly running out of allies, treaties, and time because of Bush's posturing and his diplomatic misstatements. Bush's mistaken idea that the world is his playground and our men and women in the military his toy soldiers, given to him by his father, must be rejected before it is too late.

After decades of nuclear reinforced peace, the policy of Mutually Assured Destruction has suddenly been thrown to the wind by the Bush Administration, and an eagerness to unleash hellfire upon the world has been embraced by many other world leaders as well. Have we forgotten the horrors of radioactive death we unleashed upon Japan? Has the Bush Doctrine been "modified" again? Along with embracing the bomb, will we also be welcoming Armageddon with open arms? Is that now a part of the Bush Doctrine too?

As long as Bush's fear-inflated poll numbers are high, this war will continue to expand into country after country, unless Bush's desire to turn the world into an American Empire is stopped dead in its tracks. The American public has been told flat out the War on Terror may never end in our lifetimes, and still there is no outcry. If there is an afterlife, George Orwell is looking upon us with contempt, wishing he had never wasted his time trying to warn us of wars without end.